Criticism & Children Of Narcissistic Parents

It’s natural for us to feel defensive sometimes when someone criticizes us.  However, this doesn’t mean we’re incapable, stupid, or a failure.  It simply means that the other person wants something done differently or is trying to help.  This post is for anyone who struggles with constructive criticism due to growing up with narcissistic parents.

Growing up with narcissistic parents can make it challenging to receive criticism.  Narcissistic parents often criticize their children excessively & make them feel like they’re never good enough.  As a result, children of narcissistic parents usually struggle with low self-esteem, anxiety, depression & C-PTSD.  They also may view any criticism as a personal attack & become defensive or shut down entirely.  If you grew up with narcissistic parents, it’s essential to recognize & acknowledge how their behavior affected you.  This awareness can help you start to change your mindset & respond to criticism more realistically. 

It’s also important to differentiate between constructive criticism & destructive criticism.  Constructive criticism is feedback that’s intended to help you improve.  It’s not meant to tear you down or make you feel badly about yourself.  Destructive criticism is the opposite, & is meant to hurt you & make you feel bad about yourself.  

Changing your mindset takes time & effort, but it’s very possible.  Start by recognizing that not all criticism is meant to be destructive.  Some is constructive criticism, & it’s an opportunity to learn & grow.  It’s not a personal attack.

Try to approach criticism with an open mind & a willingness to improve.  Remember that no one is perfect.  We all make mistakes sometimes & have room to grow.

It may also be helpful to practice self-compassion.  Treat yourself with kindness & understanding, in particular when you make mistakes or receive criticism.  Remind yourself that no one is perfect, & that’s ok!  Also remember that you’re doing your best, & that’s all anyone can ask of you.

When someone asks you to do something a different way, take a deep breath & try to remain calm.  Again, remember that not everyone is attacking you personally; they may just want something done differently.

Listen carefully to their feedback & ask questions if you’re not sure what they mean.  You’ll be able to identify if their criticism is constructive or destructive rather quickly.  If it’s constructive, thank them for their feedback & let them know that you’ll do your best to make the requested changes.  If you need more time or support, don’t be afraid to ask for it.  If it’s destructive, remind yourself that people who use this tactic don’t mean what they say.  They are critical as a way to gain control over someone by damaging their self esteem.

It’s important to set boundaries with people who criticize you excessively or destructively.  You have the right to protect your mental health & well-being.

If someone’s feedback is hurting you, let them know that their criticism is not helpful & ask them to stop. Sometimes people become excessively negative & critical when stressed or going through a particularly difficult time.  People like this are likely unaware of their behavior & will make appropriate changes. If they continue to criticize you & excuse their behavior, it may be a sign of a toxic person, & necessary to limit or end contact with them.

Changing your mindset & responding better to criticism takes time & effort. It’s a process, not a quick fix.  Be patient with yourself & celebrate your progress along the way.  Always remember that you’re not a failure or incapable just because someone asks you to do something differently.  Viewing constructive criticism as an opportunity to learn & grow is a very healthy thing to do.

Sneaky Insults

Everyone with any experience with narcissists knows one of their favorite pastimes is insulting people.  If they dislike a person’s new hair style, car, home, career, personality or anything about someone, that someone will know all about it!

That being said though, not all narcissists directly say what they are thinking.  They often phrase their insults in such a way as to seem innocuous.  For example, my ex husband never said I was fat, but I had no doubt he thought I was disgustingly obese even when I was too thin. I always had my own issues about my weight, so if I said anything about being overweight, he quickly agreed with me.  He would give me tips on losing weight, even though he never had been on a diet in his life.  If I said anything about him thinking I was fat, he would say that he never said that.  Which was true – he never said the word “fat.”  That doesn’t mean he wasn’t insulting me, however.

This is typical narcissistic behavior.  Not only do they love to insult their victims, but to do so in a way as to create plausible deniability.  This means if the victim confronts the narcissist about the insult, the narcissist can deny being insulting, just as my ex did with me.  This makes the victim doubt their perceptions, which is gaslighting behavior.  It also makes the victim tolerate more humiliation, because they believe that the narcissist didn’t mean what they said to be hurtful.

Sneaky insults come in various forms.  One form is moving the goal line.  The narcissist wants something from their victim, & the victim does it.  Rather than being pleased, the narcissist immediately wants something else without even saying “Thank you,” or says that the thing that was done wasn’t what they really wanted.  They wanted something more difficult.

Another sneaky insult is bringing the attention back to them when the victim has done something well.  Let’s say the victim just got a promotion at work.  Rather than simply congratulate the victim, a narcissist could say something like, “I did that job for a while a few years ago.  It was boring though so I found another job.”

Being unimpressed is another way narcissists sneakily insult their victims.  If a victim just published their first book, for example, a narcissist might respond with, “Oh.  Well I guess that’s a big deal if you care about that sort of thing.  Good for you.”

Minimizing another’s accomplishments is another sneaky insult tactic narcissists often use.  Years ago, I did some editing work for a local author before I became an author myself.  I enjoyed the work & the lady was a pleasure to work with.  I mentioned the job to my mother, naively thinking she would be happy for me.  She barely said anything when I told her about the job.  However, a few days later, she mentioned she was thinking of getting into editing books.  She said, “It’s such easy money!  Obviously anyone can do it!”

Another sneaky insult tactic is finding the down side no matter how good something is.  If the victim experiences or accomplishes something good, a narcissist will find something negative about it.  Getting married?  A narcissist will tell the victim that now they’ll have no freedom.  Having a baby?  A narcissist will regale the victim with pregnancy & birth horror stories.  Graduating college?  A narcissist will remind the victim of the thousands & thousands of dollars in college loans the victim owes.

When these things happen, remind yourself of what is happening.  This is simply a narcissist being a narcissist.  If they deny being insulting, make no mistake, they were being insulting!  And, even though it feels personal, it truly isn’t.  It’s their dysfunction coming out.  It doesn’t mean they believe what they say.  Probably they don’t, in fact.  They’re only saying such things as an attempt to hurt & gaslight you.

When People Must Share Their Opinions With You, Whether Or Not You Want Them To

I’ve noticed many people feel they must share any & all opinions, no matter whether or not other people asked them for those opinions & no matter how negative those opinions are.  Probably this is due to social media, & the ability to say anything without fear of any real repercussions from most “friends”.  Whatever the reason, it is highly annoying!  It seems nothing is a safe topic of discussion anymore.

If you think about it, you probably will realize how many folks share their less than encouraging opinions freely, no matter the topic.  Mention your thoughts on children, for example, whether or not to have children, your feelings on abortion or child rearing.  People will come out of nowhere to tell you how wrong you are & why you should think the same way they do.  Some folks tell those who have children things like they weren’t a real parent because they only had one child, they have too many children if they have more than one, or they were wrong for bottle feeding over breast feeding.  Then there are others who are adamantly against abortion because they say life is precious, yet these same people have no problem discussing their disdain for so called dirty or dumb animals & insulting vegetarians or vegans.

It amazes me that people think that their opinions are so incredibly important that they must be shared freely & with every single person they meet!

Chances are you will be subjected to this obnoxious situation at some point in your life.  And, if you’re a victim of narcissistic abuse, it can be very upsetting.  After experiencing the constant criticisms of a narcissist, you easily can become completely fed up with hearing such negativity.  That is understandable!  After experiencing this situation though I realized some things, & I want to share these things with you today.

You may never be ok with such behavior.  For one thing, it can trigger the same emotions you felt when the narcissist in your life tried to hurt you by telling you how terrible your feelings, opinions, thoughts, & everything about you were.  Early in healing, this behavior is very hard to handle because of that.  The more you heal though, the better you learn to handle triggering behavior of other people.  You see it for what it is, & handle the situation accordingly.

It’s also highly insulting when someone criticizes things that are important to you.  Insulting behavior isn’t something anyone should be ok with experiencing!  That being said though, the more you heal, the less it bothers you.  As you heal, you care less & less what other people think of you.  You realize their opinions are just that.  Theirs!  You also realize what they think is best for you isn’t necessarily what truly is best for you.  Only you know what is best for you.

What becomes more offensive than the opinions of other people is the fact that they are comfortable being disrespectful to you.  It can be very helpful to recognize why this person feels this way.  They may simply recognize you as a safe person for venting their anger or frustration at themselves on, which is why they mistreat you.  Or, this behavior may realize this person is a narcissist.  In any case, whether the person’s intentions towards you were malicious or not, it’s important to exercise healthy boundaries.  You don’t deserve to be mistreated.

Recognizing why they treat you this way can be very helpful too, because you see that their behavior isn’t about you.  It’s about them & their own dysfunction.

Unfortunately, many people seem to think they must have & share opinions on everything.  Although that is a waste of time to more functional individuals who recognize that they don’t need to have opinions on everything, let alone share them with everyone, dysfunctional people don’t see that.  Learning to deal with these people in a healthy way is a very useful skill to help you live a peaceful life.

On Insulting & Critical People

My husband & I were watching a true crime TV show not long ago, as we often do.  On it, a man shot & killed another.  At the time, he was very high on drugs & paranoid.  He mistook a simple comment made by the victim as insulting & disrespectful, which infuriated him enough to shoot this man.

I thought about how ridiculous this is.  Even if the man had been insulting, who cares?!  That was no reason to kill the guy!

Growing up with narcissistic parents, people often go one way or another.  Some turn out like what the comedian Christopher Titus referred to as an insult Navy seal.  After your parent has said unimaginably cruel things to you & called you dreadful names, no one else’s insults can hurt you.  You’ve built up a high tolerance to insults, & it takes a LOT to upset you.  Then there are many other people who have gone the other direction.  They have a thin skin when it comes to insults, & are easily devastated.  You are the folks I am writing this post for.

Nobody likes to be insulted.  Pretty sure that is just a given.  That doesn’t mean insults need to be devastating though.  For one thing, no one can please everyone.  You can be a beautiful person, inside & out, highly intelligent, successful in every area of your life, & someone still will have something negative to say no matter how perfect you are simply because no one can please every single person.

For another thing, emotionally healthy people aren’t judgmental or critical.  They are usually way too focused on managing themselves, learning, growing & being good people to worry about picking someone else apart.  This tells me that the majority of critical people aren’t emotionally healthy, like critical narcissists.  Do you really care about the opinion of someone like that?

Many insults are said out of jealousy.  For an example, a person struggling in college may be very critical of their friend who appears to be sailing through without any problems.

There is also something called morbid envy.  Narcissists are quite prone to this.  They envy someone so much that they are excessively cruel to that person.  They can be extremely nit picky towards the subject of their envy too, such as criticizing small things like a woman having a broken nail or a man’s hair being slightly disheveled.  Another common sign of morbid envy is when a person receives a complement & the narcissist immediately insults either the receiver or giver of the complement or even both.  In any case, morbid envy makes a person very insulting towards others!

And don’t forget.. there is a big difference in someone being insulting & offering constructive criticism.  Constructive criticism is worded to offer help & be as not offensive as possible.  Insults aren’t said to help, but only to hurt.

My point in sharing these thoughts with you is to help you realize that when someone is insulting to you, Dear Reader, it’s not about you.  It’s truly about that person.

What they say also has no basis in reality, only in that person’s dysfunction.  An insulting person is trying to hurt or control you by any means possible.  That doesn’t mean that what they say is true.  In fact, most likely it isn’t even close.

If you can remember these points when you come across someone who is insulting & mean to you, it really will help you to avoid being upset by that person’s nastiness.  A different perspective can be a truly helpful thing sometimes, in particular when it comes to dealing with very dysfunctional, hateful people.